Juniata boys sweep season series against East Juniata

By Kenny Varner Jr.
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Updated: October 5, 2025

Photos by Bob Hockenbrock
By Kenny Varner

COCOLAMUS – it was a Saturday night delight for the Juniata boys soccer team as they traveled to Cocolamus to take on arch rival East Juniata in their second and final meeting this season.

After a scoreless first half, the Indians broke things open in the second half posting four goals to take the contest 4-0 in front of a large mixed group of fans.

Both teams defenses took center stage in the first half. Neither teams were able to spend any substantial time in each other’s end of the field.

Juniata took the advantage in shots on goal in the first half by an 8-4 margin and led by a 2-1 mark in corner opportunities.

At the intermission, Juniata coach Jared Byler gave his team some very strong direction for their second half.

“I told them there were two things we needed to fix. I felt like we got out competed in the first half. EJ just wanted that game more than we did in the first half,” said Byler. “I felt like our guys competed better in the second half winning 50/50 balls. They just competed. I don’t know how to explain it. But you saw the competition level rise. The second thing I said we needed to fix was to not be selfish with the ball. We are not going to dribble through the defense tonight. We are going to have to break them with passes. All our goals came from guys distributing the balls. Those were the two things.”

Juniata wasted little time take control of the ball in the second half.

Pushing the ball into the Tigers back -third.

At 25:30, Juniata finally broke onto the scoreboard as they notched a score by Anthony Maradiaga, assisted by Daniel Lopez.

Before things got settled back in the Indians struck again at 22:14 Anthony Maradiaga scored assisted by Ricky Guante.

With the game dropping down under 12 minute mark the Indians added on to their lead, giving themselves some extra breathing room.

At 11:33, Juniata scored by a Daniel Lopez unassisted goal.

With time running out in the contest at 0:49 the Indians scored by Daniel Lopez as he was assisted by Anthony Maradiaga.

But for the Tigers, the team battled throughout the contest and had some chances to get on the board but the stingy Juniata defense and goalie Nolan Imes thwarted any of the East Juniata runs.

“I’m unhappy with the result but proud of the way we played. Especially in that first half. We executed a lot of the things we worked on in practice,” said East Juniata coach Tyler Inch. “We created our chances but we just didn’t finish them. In the second half, we hung with them for a while it just kind of had the wheels fall off. I think we ran out of steam. We ran out of gas a little bit. But I’m really really proud of how the team played tonight.”

Juniata led in the shots on goal department by an 11-3 margin. They also held the advantage in corner kicks posting a 5-1 advantage.

Juniata keeper Imes finished with four saves while East Juniata’s Kelton Bonnell tallied six.

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